


Leaving On A Jet Plane

by mandalorian



Category: Heaven Official´s Blessing, 天官赐福 - 墨香铜臭 | Tiān Guān Cì Fú - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV), 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, I swear Gege will be fine again, M/M, Might take a while though, Multi, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Thrift Shop AU, we are now entering crossover land
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:22:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26599747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandalorian/pseuds/mandalorian
Summary: Already I'm so lonesomeI could die-"Leaving on a Jetplane"John Denver
Relationships: Hè Xuán/Huā Chéng/Xiè Lián, mention of Wei Ying/Lan Wangji
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	1. Already I´m so lonesome I could die

**Author's Note:**

> Modern AU, it all started out with [this little prompt here](https://docmanda.tumblr.com/post/629947795307200512/mmm-how-about-airporttravel-scars-for-the-poly). And then it took off. Like an angstfilled, depressive jetplane full of sad things. Vroom.
> 
> IT WILL END HAPPY THOUGH! I insist on it.
> 
> Will be HeHuaLian
> 
> PLEASE BEWARE THE ANGSTY TAG!

It all had started when they didn't let their rival company force them into a merger. Economy had been low for years, already forcing Xian Le & Co to sell and downsize their company piece by piece but they had been holding on by the skin of their teeth with the help of the company's loyal employees, who often had been with them for decades already. When their rival company Bai Wuxiang Holdings™ had suggested a merger they had declined, confident that they would weather this particular bad spell just as they had weathered every single one before and not willing to give up their company's ethics for a merger with someone who regarded their employee´s lifes as interchangeable just to appease the stock market. And at first they had held on...until the accusations had started. They were only subtle at first, whispers of alleged fired employees that their business wasn't as sparkly clean as they wanted to make it look, fake books leaked to the press, accusations of embezzlement...they had been forced to answer lawsuit after lawsuit, their already dwindling resources being sucked dry by lawyers and his father´s rising medical bills. 

The old president´s health had been failing for years already and so it had been Xie Lian who had been subjected to most of the abuse and accusations thrown his family´s way. It was his face the people spit on when he had to hand them their papers, unable to pay their wages any longer, it was his face they saw when trial after trial was thrown their way and even though nothing ever was proven, their family's reputation was ruined beyond repair. 

And so in the end it had just been his two oldest friends from childhood who still stayed loyal to them, who helped Xie Lian provide for his old mother and sick father when he was unable to find any decent job, his face far too easily recognizable from tabloid spreads and the evening news. And even they had left them in the end, both opting to join their prospering rival firm instead of sharing the bed bug-ridden, tiny apartment with Xie Lian and his parents any longer. It had been hard enough to provide for rent and food and his father's ever rising medical bills when there were three people working. It was nearly impossible for Xie Lian on his own, working shift after back breaking shift in whatever low paying jobs he could find that day, picking up trash for recycling whenever he could not find somebody willing to hire him. He had grown increasingly irritated over the course of months, barely able to catch more than a handful of hours of sleep every day between jobs, usually going hungry or eating whatever scraps he could find so his parents had at least one decent meal a day. 

So when he had come home one night, exhausted to the bone and half starved and saw that his mother -who had never cooked a day in her life before, used to maids and cooks and all the comforts of a privileged life- had managed to burn nearly half of the bag of rice that had been Xie Lian´s sole pay for a week of loading and unloading trucks he had lost his patience. He could never recall what he had actually said to his parents, his mother's white face and his father´s labored coughing the only memories he has of that particular scene. He knows that he left their tiny apartment that night, just wandering around the streets aimlessly until the sun rose again, his bad conscience growing with every minute. And so he had returned home with a small bag of fresh fruit -a rare treat for them now- he had bought with the last few dollars in his pocket as a peace offering and apology. 

But when he had entered their tiny place, softly calling out for his mother only silence had answered him. And when he had carefully pushed away the old blanket they had put up between the drafty old door and their bedroom his parents had not been lying in their rickety old bed. They had instead dangled from the ceiling, their swollen faces a horrendous, purplish blue that would haunt Xie Lian´s nightmares for the rest of his life. He must have stood there just staring at them gently swaying in the morning breeze for what felt like hours, unaware of the tears drying on his face, his hand reaching out for his mother's feet frozen in the empty space between them. The still lingering smell of burnt rice had been what had finally woken him up again, his gaze moving from his parents to the pot still sitting on their stove. 

He had nearly crushed his own head in when he had slipped in his haste to get over there and lunge for the pot, stuffing handfuls of burnt rice mixed with his own blood down his throat until his sobs made him choke too hard to swallow, throwing everything up again. He had sat in his own mess for a while, sobbing too hard to breathe properly until he felt faint and dizzy, helplessly crying for his mom and dad until his gaze had fallen onto his parent´s corpses again. He could not leave them like that, could he, just dangling from their termite-ridden ceiling beam and so he pulled himself up, the weight of the world crushing his bones as he carefully took them down, laying them onto their narrow bed, close to each other like they would have wanted. It takes all the courage he still has left to kiss their terrible, alien faces good night for the last time before he carefully unravels what they used for their noose from their crushed throats: the white silken belt of his mother´s old robe, a relic from better times. Xie Lian is calm when he throws the belt over the ceiling beam again that not too long ago had supported his parents dead bodies, the silken belt deceptively soft around his throat when he kicks away the chair underneath him.

He wakes up in the hospital a few hours later, his throat sore and swollen and his hands cuffed to his bed frame. When he had pushed aside the chair underneath himself the sudden drop of his weight had finally taken out the old ceiling beam, the resulting crash alarming their neighbors to come investigate. Someone had called emergency services, the police and EMTs were slow to respond to a call into this part of town, where insurance was a rarity but crime was not. But even here two corpses and one near-corpse could not simply be ignored, with Xie Lian ending up in hospital and his parents in the morgue. Xie Lian is numb through the endless procedures that follow, from doctors and nurses and official papers, signing the paperwork subjecting his parent´s bodies to paupers graves with the same indifference as he signs his own release papers, the hospital eager to get him out of their ward again, penniless as he is. 

Afterward he had scraped together every single dollar and penny he could find, selling everything he still owned aside from the clothes on his body, his old, barely functional phone and a white piece of silk to buy the first plane ticket he could get for the money, the only deciding criteria being “as far away as possible”. Xie Lian knew he was headed into a vaguely asian direction but he hadn't even bothered to look up the exact location on his broken down phone before selling that too, the cash from this sale the only money he had left in this world. It should be enough to feed him for a few days if he was careful...and he honestly didn't care what would come afterwards. Maybe he'd eat, maybe he'd get stabbed to death in some random asian town, just another vagrant who got lost. Xie Lian couldn´t find it in him to care, the bruising around his sore throat still too vivid to think of anything else.

He is unremarkable as he stands in line for the security check, vacantly smiling and pleasant and unobtrusive even to the personnel´s eyes while he calmly waits for his turn. Xie Lian has never flown before, his father had had a deep distrust of planes and insisted on all necessary travel being done either by car, boat or train and yet nothing can arouse his curiosity. He had sold the pills they had given him in the hospital the moment he had left it, the pain medication and antidepressants making up most of his travel budget and so the constant feeling of being outside of his own body, just an uninvolved observer to everything happening around him, had never passed. Someone bumps into him when he is too slow to react when the line starts moving again and Xie Lian vaguely registers a painfully bright red sweater as he apologizes softly and shuffles along. He doesn't even hear iif he gets any kind of answer, his mind already drifting again.

His movements are automatic when it is finally his turn at the security check, he does not carry any luggage and the few items in his pockets are quickly dropped into the plastic bins provided by security, Xie Lian´s mind far away from what is happening...up until the point a firm hand on his elbow keeps him from progressing.

“You need to take off your scarf too, sir.”

The young woman's voice is professionally polite but unyielding, smiling her empty customer service smile at him as Xie Lian can feel panic rise in his stomach. His throat is still badly bruised, the slip of silk against his skin leaving burns that are slow to heal and will probably scar and it would not exactly be hard to deduce what must have happened to him by the pattern of rough red burns and greenish- yellow bruises on his skin, a daily, painful reminder of all his faults and losses. 

They just stare at each other for a few moments, her empty eyes starting to grow suspicious at his abnormal behaviour, years of training picking up even the slightest shift from what would be considered normal at this point. The grip on Xie Lian´s elbow turns harder and one of her male colleagues is starting to move closer, alerted by her pose. Xie Lian knows nothing about flying...but he knows if he fucks up here he will end up in a cell instead of his plane and his last chance of leaving will have been lost. And so he manages to scrape together some of the iron still left in his core, smiling apologetically at the security guard in front of him as he slowly lifts his hand to unwrap the grey scarf around his throat.

“Ah I apologize Officer, this is my first time flying and I am a little nervous.”

His voice is still rough with injury as he carefully puts his scarf into his plastic bin, his smile a combination of boyish charm and apology. He can see the woman's eyes first widen with understanding, then soften with pity as she gently pats his arm, leading him along through the scanner waiting for him.

“...it's alright sir, no harm done. Have a safe flight.”

Xie Lian manages another, slightly wobbly smile for her, numbly going through the motions of spreading his arms and legs and being patted down, consciously avoiding everybody's eyes as he grabs his things out of his plastic bin again, his fingers shaking as he ties the scarf back around his throat, tight enough to make him wince in pain. He can feel the world growing closer second by second, his field of vision narrowing down further and further with the rising panic he's starting to lose control over and only the fact that he has been noticeable now and has already appeared on security´s radar helps him keep onto his rapidly dwindling composure until he spots a restroom, nearly running headlong into the wall in his haste to get into one of the stalls to break down quietly, without anybody seeing.

But instead of into a wall he bumps into something boney and hard and the shock of it makes a sob escape from between the tightly clenched fingers pressed against his mouth, his legs turning into water as his momentum gets broken by sinewy arms around him, holding him carefully.

“Whoa Gege, careful there...do you have him?”

“Hm.”

The arms are careful as they lead Xie Lian down, his legs not able to support his weight again and he sags against the body holding him, his hands clamped tight over his mouth in an attempt to physically force back the sobs that just keep on coming without his consent. He is shaking so bad he can hear his teeth chatter and for a while he is lost in his own pain, sobbing into a stranger´s chest while careful hands stroke his hair, two voices trying to soothe him out of his panic attack. There is something icy cold being pressed into the nape of his neck -above his scarf and without disturbing it- and the slight sting gives him something to focus on again, slowly calming down bit by bit.

When Xie Lian is finally himself enough to register his surroundings he has to fight hard not to start sobbing again with embarrassment: he is being held gently but firmly by a black-clad man, basically sitting in his lap on the floor of the washroom he had managed to get into, golden-brown eyes watching him gently but attentively. They aren´t alone and Xie Lian´s brain takes a few moments to recognize the man gently stroking his hair and holding something cold to his neck as the man in the bright red sweater that had bumped into him in the waiting line before. His single visible eye is dark and worried, the other one hidden behind a thick curtain of raven black, unruly hair.

“You with us again gege?”

Xie Lian manages a tiny nod, speech still being beyond him and the red-clad man's face lights up in a warm smile. His fingers are blessedly cool against Xie Lian´s hot, tear streaked face as he gently lifts up his chin to muster him, his dark eye full of something warm that makes Xie Lian´s chest feel tight. He can't shake the feeling that he knows him from somewhere but at the moment he doesn't have the capacity to think about anything beyond what is currently happening.And he honestly doesn't care either, feeling empty and exhausted and devoid of anything resembling emotions for the moment.

“Good. You look like death warmed over twice though. Also, sorry for just barging in on you like this. We were behind you in security and you looked like you were about to freak out so we decided to follow to see if you were okay...good thing we did.”

He smiles at Xie Lian again, warm and gentle with an underlying sadness that confuses him. They´re strangers after all, why feel sad for a random person like him? It feels good though, to be looked at like this and cradled like something precious and Xie Lian decides he might as well take advantage of the situation until they realize what a poor excuse for a human being he truly is and leave him alone again like everybody else does. And so he leans closer into the black one´s chest, closing his tired eyes as cool fingers return to his hair. He can hear the two of them talking silently, discussing what to do next -take him to their private waiting area apparently and get a doctor for him. They must be wealthy if they can afford a separee in one of the first class waiting areas provided for the rich and famous, Xie Lian thinks, and he does not protest when he gets picked up in one swift motion, his head heavy with exhaustion and lack of sleep. It doesn't really matter anyway, maybe they will be kind, maybe they will be cruel. For now all Xie Lian wants is to sleep and hopefully never wake up again.


	2. But the dawn is breakin'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But the dawn is breakin'  
> It's early morn  
> \- "Leaving on a Jet plane"  
> John Denver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, no HuaHua PoV in this one...in fact, there is no HuaHua at all, really ^^" Or fishie boys...instead, we´re entering crossover land, yay ^^ I had the idea of Xie Lian getting picked up by Granny and Uncle and ending up living in their thrift shop a while ago already and my brain thought, hey why not combine both AU´s ?So here we are...i promise our Devastations will be back next chapter and we will start having more funny times then bad times (well, within a reason of course ^^)
> 
> But for now, have this.
> 
> Also, for Reasons™ Granny and Uncle are married in this because f*** canon ^^ (the reasons being me being to lazy to edit all the mentions of old couple...)

The next unspecified bit of time -to Xie Lian it feels like hours, aeons maybe even though his inner clock says it can´t have been that long- is just a vague mumble of things: Carefully being carried and being put onto something soft although the hands never leave him, continuously stroking his hair or his face or holding his cold hands. There are voices too even though he cannot make out what they're saying and at some point there comes the cool touch of gloves and a sharp pain in his elbow, followed by burning coldness . Then motion again, less careful this time and on a flat surface instead of in somebody's arms and the sting of cold air that smells like exhaust and city fumes. When he finally gains enough self consciousness again to finally open his eyes he is met with white all around him and medical equipment stacked in every nook and cranny. The light is harsh, white and blinding on top of his splitting headache and it takes him a moment to recognize his surroundings as the inside of an ambulance.

The realization makes him freeze like a deer in headlights, eyes wide with reflexive panic again even though it feels strangely muted this time, as if his body wants to react but can´t.. Being in an ambulance outside meant not being in the airport anymore...and that meant his only chance of getting away had been lost, the ticket he had sold everything he owned for now void and useless and himself being left with nowhere to go. He feels like this should be cause for some tears or any kind of reaction aside from the vague sense of ´eh´he is experiencing but when nothing happens he mentally shrugs his shoulders and carefully takes stock of his surroundings instead. 

He is laying in an ambulance, he was right about that and there is an i.v. in his arm, slowly dripping cold fluid that is probably the cause of him being weirdly dizzy and indifferent at the same time. The door to the back of the ambulance is open and he can see that the sky has already begun to darken. There is nobody with him in the ambulance right now but he can hear voices outside, some alien ones and two he recognizes as the voices of the two strangers who had helped him before. He can't understand what they are saying over the background noise of planes and cars and people rushing around but the red clothed one´s voice sounds angry, aggressive even. Xie Lian can feel a sense of dread creeping up his throat even through his medically induced indifference.

They must have called a doctor for Xie Lian as they had said they would and must have been forced to accompany him too, missing their own flight in the process. No wonder the one in red sounded so angry, he probably regretted having helped a stranger like Xie Lian by now. Xie Lian is silent and careful as he pulls the needle out of his arm, not caring about the drops of blood that follow in its wake and sits up, giving himself a few minutes so his head can stop spinning before slowly walking to the door while balancing himself against the wall of the ambulance. A peek around the corner makes his stomach drop even more. He can see the two strangers, the red clad one angrily gesturing at one of the EMT´s while the one in black is standing close to him with his arms crossed over his chest, glowering at two police officers . 

They really must have gotten in trouble for helping him if there even was police at the scene, Xie Lian thinks, the shame of being a nuisance and trouble to these kind people making his stomach churn wildly. He stands frozen for a few seconds, contemplating interrupting them and apologizing and making sure that the police knew it was all his fault whatever the problem was and not theirs...but in the end, all he does is clutch the rough emergency blanket around his shoulders tighter to himself and silently slip out into the night with a last longing look at the two kind figures before anybody can see him.

If he is the problem then he can make it go away simply by not being there anymore right?

\-------------------------------------------------a few months later-------------------------------------------------

Xie Lian sneezes a few times as he shakes out the last bit of kibble for their horde of strays, cats scattering in all directions, making him giggle and sniffle at the same time and he laughingly apologizes to the half dozen glowing eyes now mustering him from their hideouts in that particular accusatory way all cats have.

“Ah so sorry so sorry, I didn't mean to spook you I´ll bring you some more treats later to make up for it yes? Stupid clumsy human being clumsy, am I right? ” 

There is a small kitty sneeze from somewhere to his left in confirmation, making him giggle again as he carefully folds up the empty bag for recycling, stepping back into the backroom of the thrift shop that has been his home for these last few months, leaving Granny´s strays to have their breakfast in peace. Usually she will feed her kittens herself, cooing at them and scratching backs and bellies as she hands out treats but she and Uncle have gone to visit family, leaving Xie Lian alone to tend the place in their absence. It had taken a bit getting used to at first to be mostly alone again for most of the day but he had quickly found back into his usual routine, talking to the cats when he felt especially lonely and there weren't any customers around.  
In the evenings either A-Ning or A-Qing would usually check on him -the first one accompanied by soft smiles and self cooked meals and the second one with a strict look at his medication, making sure he did not slack off when there weren't people around to make sure he took them- spending about an hour talking and helping him close up shop before leaving for their own home. Xie Lian didn´t mind their visits, he knew that Uncle and Granny had been slightly worried about leaving him alone for a whole of six weeks..and really, he had been troublesome enough to warrant that worry. So if it made them feel better to know the Wen siblings would regularly check up on him then Xie Lian surely didn´t object.

He leaves the backdoor open for now, allowing the cool morning breeze to help air out the dusty shop and equally dusty backroom before he goes to grab his broom to start his daily sweeping. It had still been the deep of winter when he had first appeared at Uncle's shop, trying to sell some old magazines he had found in the trash the day before, half starved and shivering with fever in his too thin clothes. Granny had taken one look at him swaying in the doorway and barely able to keep standing without leaning against the wall, cheeks burning fever bright in a too thin, deathly pale face and had put her foot down immediately, carefully grabbing his hand and pulling him inside the shop fully before closing the door behind him. 

“..but my Love...”

“No but. -Look- at that child old man, he's burning up with fever and about to keel over, if you send him back out in the cold in these scraps he will be dead in a ditch by sunrise! Help me get him onto the couch and get that heater set up. And call A-Qing, she´s off duty today and this boy needs a doctor.”

Uncle had only put up a token protest -he was a stranger after all and they were old people, vulnerable and at risk- but Granny´s decision had been non-negotiable. Nobody had listened to Xie Lian´s weak protests as he had been bundled into blankets and put onto an old dusty couch, a heating fan blowing deliciously warm air at his frozen body. He truly was sick, he had been for a while now and the dropping temperature and lack of proper shelter had only made it worse. It had only started out as a small cold at first, just a minor nuisance but the continued weeks of hunger and living on the streets had turned the cold into a deep-seated cough that made Xie Lian throw up whatever small meal he might have been able to scrunch up that day with the force of it. He could have sought help from a shelter or one of the few walk-in clinics who would accept charity cases like him...but he simply hadn't found it in him to care enough. He didn't care about anything at all anymore, even trying to get food more of a habit than a true need and so he had just sat there, made sleepy by the fever and the warm air. For him waking up dead in a ditch sounded just as good as sleeping on a soft, warm couch, there was no sense in trying to put up any kind of fight anymore. And so he had let them fuss over him, docile and silent until he had fallen asleep at some point, accepting his fate whatever it might be. 

He had woken up to the touch of something very very cold on his chest, his eyes flying open with a gasp and he found himself staring right into the face of a young, very pretty woman, round deep brown eyes mustering him professionally. 

“You´re awake. Good. Take a deep breath, in and out. Slowly. Now cough please. Hm as I thought.”

He does as she says without even thinking about it, the commanding tone in her voice leaving no room for any kind of protest, before recognizing the coldness on his chest as a stethoscope. She must be a doctor then. Xie Lian does not care. He is silent as she continues to prod him, taking his pulse, having him sit up to tap the back of his chest, making disgruntled noises all the time before finally allowing him to lay back down. Xie Lian is already exhausted from just this little bit of moving around and he barely hears her say something about ´double sided pneumonia´ and ´dangerously malnourished´ to the old couple standing anxiously next to her before he starts to drift off again. The world ´hospital´does register bright and clear though and before any of the people in the room can react he is up already and halfway across the room before he gets tangled in his blankets and crashes down hard, demolishing a small camping table in the process.

He does put up a struggle when they come to get him this time...at least until the next bout of coughing wracks his skinny body, his eyes watering with pain. There is clear worry in her dark brown eyes now, warm hands steady on his pulse as she holds him up so he can catch his breath again...a process that takes nearly ten minutes of him struggling and wheezing in her arms.

“...alright, no hospital then. That was what set you off right? Don´t worry I'm not going to ask you why, provided you help me get you back on that couch and stay there this time.”

Xie Lian gives a weak nod as answer, the couch is still better than the hard ground after all and so the three of them haul him back up, his limp body nothing more than dead weight. His last memories are their voices talking about him, about antibiotics and oxygen and fluids and someone called A-Ning coming over to keep watch over him before his strength finally gives out and he falls unconscious.

It had taken nearly six weeks and an endless plethora of medication and physical therapy for him to not be bedridden anymore. He had been pricked endless times, sometimes resembling a hedgehog more than a human being from all the acupuncture needles stuck into his skin by gentle but merciless hands. A-Ning -who had turned out to be the younger brother of the fear inspiring doctor that had taken on Xie Lian´s sickness, a gentle mild mannered man with sad brown eyes- had fed him soup and herbal concoctions that made him whack up big wads of dark yellow, nasty phlegm, diligently cleaning up whenever Xie Lian made a mess, Granny´s stooped silhouette always watching carefully over them. 

He had learned that the Wen siblings where relatives of the old couple owning the shop -Xie Lian didn´t know them by any other name then Granny and Uncle Four, they had never offered anything else and he hadn't asked- with Wen Qing being a doctor, working at the local hospital and her brother mostly staying at home. Xie Lian had wondered out loud at some point if Wen Ning was a doctor too since he clearly knew what he was doing and was as professional and diligent in his care as his sister was. Wen Ning had smiled bashfully at him, his eyes wide and sad and explained that, while he had learned everything that his sister had learned, he would never be able to become a doctor due to a rare form of epilepsy he had. “Turns me right into a zombie when I am having an attack you know, like one of these walking dead things in the horror movies. And some of these episodes can last for days...we have it under control pretty good, mind you, but it's still too much of a risk for...well, anything really. I usually help my sister out wherever I can to keep busy.”

Xie Lian had felt bad for asking about something that was clearly a sensitive topic for him and apologized but Wen Ning had only patted his arm and then ruthlessly exploited his lingering bad conscience to make him eat another few spoonfuls of soup.

But as Xie Lian´s body continued to heal the state of his mind took another deep decline. His daily needs were met now and he had nothing to do but lie around all day, staring at the walls, too weak still to get up but not sick enough anymore to simply sleep through most of the day. Nothing could catch his interest and as much as everyone tried starting a conversation with him to provide some distraction he would lose interest after only a few minutes, eyes growing dazed and listless again. Wen Qing and Wen Ning always had a watchful eye out for him and when Wen Qing had caught him staring at one of the knives on the kitchen counter for the second time in a row she had snapped. It was the only time she had ever been rough with him, grabbing him by the chin and forcing him to look at her, her voice harsh and impatient.

“Look, let´s cut the shit for the moment and -listen- to me okay? ...I know who you are, Xie Lian, and so do Granny and Uncle and A-Ning because as willing as they might be to take in a stranger in need I am not willing to take that risk for them. I looked you up. I know what happened to you and your family, at least the shit that was in the tabloids and on the news. I know that these scars around your neck aren't from a shaving accident and I can guess the reason why you never told us your name and get all panicky whenever anybody mentions hospitals or the police. And I am no psychiatrist but I know enough to see that you have a full blown case of clinical depression, which is completely understandable, considering what you have been through. I can´t help you working through your trauma, that is not my expertise but I can give you medication to help you get well enough again so you can actually go and see someone about it. And I also know that…” at this point the grip on his chin had vanished and her voice had turned soft, with a core of steel underneath it “..if you really want to kill yourself, in the end nobody will be able to stop you. I do hope though, that you at least have the decency to not do it here, it would be a harsh way to repay the kindness that has been given to you. So make your choice.”

With that she had left, leaving two items on the bedside table next to Xie Lian. 

When she had returned a couple of hours later she had found him sleeping, the knife still untouched and two pills missing from the bottle of antidepressants next to it.

Xie Lian sighs at the memory, carefully dusting around the picture frames behind the counter, displaying a multitude of the old couple´s relatives of all kinds, as always lingering slightly on the central one. It's his favorite of all the family pictures here, depicting a wild haired, brightly grinning young man all in black and a tall, graceful looking man in white smiling at each other softly while holding the hands of a toddler in between them. Xie Lian knows they aren´t related to Uncle and Granny by blood even though they call them their nephews. He vaguely knows of complicated youths spent in a foster family and an overly traditional, old clan that had very vigorously opposed any kind of union between them, ultimately leading to them eloping together when the rift had become too great. He knows that Granny had collected the wild one pretty much like she had collected him: a stray on the streets with no place to stay and that it had not taken long for the other one to follow his heart, cutting all ties to his family aside from his older brother in the process. He knows that this older brother occasionally visited Uncle and Granny but he has never seen any of the wild one´s family around even though Granny had at one point talked about siblings. 

He gives the picture a last, gentle pat with his feather duster before continuing to clean between all the knick knacks littering the shelves. Even from a grainy picture like this it was clear to see how absolutely, helplessly in love they had to be with each other and it hurt that even nowadays people were hard hearted enough to force people into leaving behind their families for love. He knows that there was probably more to it than just unaccepting elders but it wasn't his place to ask, even though he was curious and tragic pasts were apparently way more common than one would think. But after all it was only common courtesy to not pry into other people's private business…and neither Granny nor Uncle Four had ever tried to coax –him- into exposing anything about his past either that he wasn't ready to share on his own.

He absentmindedly hums along to the old radio as he continues his daily round of dusting, occasionally singing a few snippets of the never changing array of oldies that have become his daily background noise -the radio is truly ancient, a monster made up of bakelite knobs and mysterious dials and will only ever play this one, particular station and nothing else- and the familiarity of the sound is comforting.

Business usually was slow during the mornings and so even if Uncle and Granny were not on vacation with their not-Nephews and the kid they had adopted Xie Lian would usually be alone in the shop until the early afternoon, serving the occasional customer and otherwise left to his own devices. He didn't mind having the place to himself, he was used to being alone and it gave him enough leisure time to have a peek through Uncle´s bursting shelves and unpacked boxes stacked high in the backrooms. Going through other people's trash had been a necessity before but he had to admit that it did satisfy some deep seated curiosity in him to dig through what was left of other people's lives, the small knick knacks they had considered important enough to keep and all the small bits and pieces that would be left over after their lives had ended. Xie Lian especially loved looking through old picture albums, the grainy, sepia colored, creased pictures a fascinating window to the past, usually featuring people during the happiest moments of their lives. He had started to sort them into categories at some point, the marriages and child births and anniversaries, feeling a weird mix of nostalgia and longing whenever he looked through them. His family did have books like these too, spanning happy moments throughout the generations but they had all been lost together with everything else. Sometimes he could not bear to look at them, preferring to burrow himself in old books and magazines instead when the sense of loss became too much for him.

It had been a while since he had any kind of routine in his life and the regularity it has now is soothing: get up early, take his meds, limber up from sleeping on his old rickety couch with a few exercises in their small, walled of backyard, make sure Granny´s stray cats have enough food and water before making himself some tea and breakfast in the tiny kitchen in the back, turn on the radio and start cleaning up while occasionally taking a sip and reading through the new books and magazines Uncle had accepted the day before. It had felt like the right thing to do, to stay afterwards and help Uncle and Granny in the shop. They were not young anymore and Uncle´s arthritis and Granny´s bad eyes had made work hard for them, with especially Granny not-so-subtly hinting at how nice it would be to have a young man around to help with the heavy lifting. So Xie Lian had stayed, moving boxes and taking care of the high shelves with Uncle happily chatting along in the background about whatever weird item had caught his sight that day, slowly becoming himself again, bit by little bit. 

If you would ask him why he had chosen his last chance at life this one fateful day instead of the easy way out Xie Lian would not be able to give you an answer. He had been just as surprised about his hand reaching for life instead of death as Wen Qing probably had been...and even if there were still many bad days he hadn´t regretted his decision yet.

**Author's Note:**

> So. There we go. Second chapter will probably continue right after this but probs from HuaHua´s PoV, don´t know yet. I need a break first and maybe a spiked cocoa or smth ^^"


End file.
